Entries tagged with: PukkelpopFest

Jessie Ware, who you might remember as one of the voices on the SBTRKT album or maybe from Joker's "The Vision", is now set to release her own album. It's called Devotion and it's due out August 20 via PMR Records. You can stream two album tracks -- "WIldest Moments" and "110%" -- and check out the video for a third -- "Running" -- below, along with the album's tracklist.

Jessie Ware has a few upcoming dates this summer (none in North America at the moment), and one of those is Pukkelpop in Belgium. A list of all Jessie Ware dates, videos, song stream and album tracklist below...

I was at Pukkelpop festival with Rival Schools earlier this week, still trying to make sense of it. The storm hit about twenty minutes before we were supposed to play.

Strange to say, knowing what we know now but I was having fun watching the storm, by the time it really started coming down I was safe in the backstage area. As violent as the storm was it only slightly crossed my mind that someone would get hurt.

I guess having seen that stage collapse in Indiana the week before it just seemed to weird to have another tragedy like that happen in the same week.

I was listening to Skunk Anansie's set as the hail arrived. As they were leading up a huge creshendo/finale to their set the motherload of lightning came down on the festival in perfect time. I wanted to be in the audience at that moment and not backstage, it was an awesome sound.

The storm raged on for about a half hour after that at full intensity, hale and everything. When it finally slowed down people started to show up backstage with news, at first it was cool stories of how crazy it was and how there were trees down and that it didn't look like we'd get to play.

After that we heard that a couple of people had died and then it wasn't so fun, started to feel a little guilty that it had been fun actually. The death number went up to 6 and then back to two and when I heard the next day I think it was seven.

It was a very strange beginning to the tour for us, I was happy to be safe and with my friends but I felt bad knowing how some people's lives would never be the same. Helped me to understand why insurance companies use the expression "An act of God". My heart goes out to the families of the victims.

"On behalf of myself, Ben and Rob, I'd like to extend our heartfelt sympathy to anyone caught or hurt in the storms at Pukkelpop. Our show has been cancelled. Thanks to everyone who came to support us." - James Blake

One of Europe's largest outdoor music festivals was canceled Friday after a stage collapsed during a violent storm in Belgium, killing five people and injuring 50, organizers said.

Belgian authorities confirmed Friday that the death toll has gone up.

"A fifth person has died," Andy Payne, spokesman for the nation's crisis center, told CNN. He said he did not know the circumstances surrounding the death.

Three people were heavily injured, said Katrien Goossens, spokeswoman for the festival organizer.

The families of the victims have been contacted, she said. In addition, the festival is providing lodging, food and clothes for those concertgoers from abroad who have tickets to return home on Sunday.

The storm struck Thursday just hours after Pukkelpop kicked off. The scheduled three-day event was in Hasselt, east of Brussels.
Strong winds ripped up trees and smashed them into one of the festival's eight stages, Belga national press agency reported.
Belgian authorities are investigating the stage collapse, which struck those who had gathered to watch the Smith Westerns perform, Belga reported. [CNN]

"Sorry to all at Pukkelpop who endured the disastrous storm. Tune-Yards will be back and we're sending strength out to those injured!" - merrill garbus

Translated to English by Google:

Pukkelpop is in deep mourning. We feel much sympathy to the families and friends of the victims. Words can not describe. We can therefore not easy to reconcile the festival continue to take place. Therefore, we decided to Pukkelpop 2011 for the rest of the weekend to stop.

What happened here is exceptional and has been very unpredictable. We are very touched by all the spontaneous help that our festival goers and we received.

We call on all Pukkelpop Press on to a serene way back home again. There are extra buses and trains loaded to everyone back home.

Many of you are undoubtedly a lot of practical questions, we urge you to focus on this info@pukkelpop.be .

We ask everyone to bring understanding to this very difficult decision.[pukkelpop.be]

The Belgian music festival Pukkelpop Festival was hit with a severe storm today, which appears to have hit during or around the time of the Smith Westerns' set. Frontman Cullen Omori intially tweeted "Stage collapsed max almost got crushed by the tress. I hope pukkelpop has insurance bc all our shit is broke," but has since deleted it and followed up with, "Apologize to anyone who mistook tweet. Wrote direclty after running off stage. Just found out the extent of damage. All of prays go out to those hurt."

A storm swepts through an open air music festival in eastern Belgium on Thursday killing at least three people and injuring over 70 others, an official said.

Video from the site showed stage equipment dangling in high winds near the town of Hasselt, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) east of Brussels, as rain-soaked concertgoers at the Pukkelpop music festival ran for cover .

More than 20 ambulances were dispatched to the festival ground outside of Hasselt, a small town in eastern Belgium.

Hugo Simons, Hasselt's head of emergency planning, told VRT radio that 11 people were severely injured while 60 sustained light injuries as a result of the storm.

Hilde Claes, Hasselt's mayor, said those injured are taken to several nearby hospitals. Some of those lightly injured were being treated at a local sports complex.

Chokri Mahassine, the organizer of the festival, said "we have for now put the festival on hold until we understand the situation completely."

Dutch NOS television reporter Rick Hoogkamp, who was attending the concert, said the sky got dark, winds picked up violently and hailstones pelted those gathered.

He said several tents collapsed. Images of the disaster also showed fallen trees and fallen lighting scaffolds.

The festival's website lists a number of stages where concerts and performances were to be held during the three-day event, which started Thursday. Reports say some 60,000 people are attending the event. [ABC/AP]

All details are still not known and are being updated frequently as the news learns more details. Other bands scheduled to play the fest today are/were Foo Fighters, Thirty Second to Mars, Fleet Foxes, James Blake, The Streets, Chromeo, Battles and many more.

Our condolences to the family and friends of those who lost their lives and to the injured in Belgium. A video about the incident is at ABC's website, and there's two that showed up on Youtube already, below...

"On Saturday night at Pukkelpop as the festival was coming to a close Jesse [Lee, drummer for Gang Gang Dance,] was singled out and attacked by three security guards as he was attempting to walk to the artist backstage area to get the shuttle to the hotel. Security denied him access although he was clearly wearing an artists wristband and immediately dragged him to a darkened area that was not on the close circuit TV network and forced him face first into the ground, they then pulled his arms behind stamping on them trying to break both arms whilst repeatedly shouting at him, 'We are going to show you what real pain is.' They handcuffed him and continued the unprovoked beating. The three thugs then took Jesse to the police where they accused him of throwing a bottle at them." [GGD's publicist via Pitchfork]